Somerset residents could have only eight weeks to have their say on the future of early help provision across the county, which affects thousands of families across the county.

Somerset County Council will launch a public consultation in November on the future of the GetSet service, which provides early intervention help and support to young people and families.

The council has planned to consult the public for two months and then analyse the results by mid-February, when the authority's annual budget will be set.

But officers have been asked to rethink and extend the consultation period so that it doesn't end during the Christmas holidays.

This comes just days after the council's cabinet agreed to cut the number of GetSet staff, which was originally agreed in September.

The council published two proposals relating to GetSet ahead of the September meeting - one relating to reducing the staffing levels, the other for the "alteration and/ or reduction of early help services" provided by GetSet.

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The former proposal, which cleared its final hurdle on Wednesday afternoon (October 17), could save the council more than £2M per year.

A report on the wider future of GetSet came before the council's children and families scrutiny committee in Taunton on Friday morning (October 19).

Under the current plans, the public consultation will be formally launched on November 5 and will run for eight weeks, ending on December 31 .

Responses will be collected by an online questionnaire and analysed as they come in - though paper copies will be made available on request.

An initial paper for the cabinet will be circulated to members in the first week of January, with the final draft being scrutinised by the children and families committee on January 25 .

The cabinet will take a final decision - including any recommendations put forward by scrutiny - on February 11 .

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Julie Breeze, the council's strategic commissioner for early help, said: "Any consultation needs to set out what is available now and what is available in the future.

"Over the eight weeks we will get out to as many events as we can. GetSet staff at every group that is running will be handing out a briefing sheet. Paper copies can be put in schools and nurseries - we will do everything we can to reach as many people as we can."

She promised that the online survey would be set out "in plain English" to encourage as many people as possible to respond, and that trade unions and existing staff would be closely involved, along with GPs and schools.

Philippa Granthier, assistant director of commissioning and performance, added: "We will set out the background to early help in Somerset, how the service has been developed since 2014, and what services are currently provided by the council and its partners.

"We will set out the rationale for change, explain what early help services would be available following the decision, explain how we think our partners can help, and how we think our communities and voluntary sector can help.

"We will set out the impact we think the proposals will have on families in Somerset, ask what effect this will have on families and partners, and whether people think the council can achieve its objectives in other ways."

County Hall in Taunton, the headquarters of Somerset County Council (Image: Copyright Unknown)

These words did little to reassure members of the committee, who questioned whether the consultation period was long enough to get an accurate picture of people's concerns.

Councillor Leigh Redman, who chairs the committee, said: "Two of your eight weeks for consultation are Christmas - not only does this place shut down, but most of the world shut down for that time period. I think you may need to reconsider your timetable somewhat.

"The expectation that something will be ready by February is ambitious. If we are going to do this properly, and not leave us open to further challenge, we need to have a reasonable timetable.

"A meaningful consultation sounds good until you put Christmas in the middle of it."

Eileen Tipper, who is involved with the Schools Forum, said that libraries could not be relied upon to provide paper copies to people who were not computer-literate or who did not have internet access.

She said: "Alarm bells ring when you say it will be an online consultation, because not everyone has access to online - what happened to digital by design, rather than digital by default?